


Princess of the Crimson Waste

by Runeless



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Catra Stays in the Crimson Waste, Catra's Choice, Crimson Waste, F/F, Gen, Government, In a Desert Land the Shadows Fear the Sun, Nation Building, Politics, Princess of the Crimson Waste, You Could Be Happy, world-building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-10-01 16:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20330917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Runeless/pseuds/Runeless
Summary: Catra chooses happiness.Catra chooses the Crimson Waste.(Spoilers for Season 3.)





	Princess of the Crimson Waste

Catra, Princess of the Crimson Waste

Catra stands before Scorpia, who is so sweet, so pure, who is so _traitorous_, apparently; she has just suggested they stay here. No more Hordak, no more Horde, just the Crimson Waste, forevermore.

It has an attraction to it. It is a choice, and one Catra makes freely; there is no pressure here. To go on, or to turn back... it is all on her. The coin flips, and she has a choice.

In another life, Catra makes her choice, and it ruins her. It leads to portals and stars, the deaths of angels, the changing of the world. Her own destruction.

But there is a choice here. She looks at Scorpia, whose eyes light up when the big girl looks at her, and Scorpia's face is so cute, and... and does Scorpia herself know what she wants from Catra? Does she know what she hungers for? Scorpia is so big, and so honest, and yet so ignorant. Catra has recognized it from day one, that hunger in her eyes that looks the way the hunger inside Catra feels, the hunger she feels for Adora.

But Adora isn't hers. Catra has Adora in her prison, guarded by her troops, locked up by her orders... and she still doesn't have her. She never will, and that is something she has never allowed herself to know. Ever since this fucking sword, Adora has been lost to her.

...Maybe... Maybe she should just take what she has, and stop living for yesterday. Scorpia's right. The Crimson Waste is a fine prize, and she must admit she likes the people; they are as tough as she is, as mean as she is, she feels like this place is made for her, a place she might yet be happy. This could be home.

And Scorpia... Scorpia could be hers, has always been there, waiting for her to say the word. She's never really considered it, but now... she's throwing off everything else. Shaking it from her like desert sand from her cloak. Why not this? Why not?

She could be happy.

(She has never been happy before, but right now, she is; and it tastes... this tastes like a victory all by itself, this tastes like ambrosia, this tastes like manna from heaven. She could drink from this cup for the rest of her life and never have enough.)

She chooses happiness.

“ Okay,” she breathes, quietly. Scorpia's surprised, as Catra gathers a breath and says, more strongly, “ Okay. Let's stay.”

Scorpia's surprised joy, her bright smile, plucks at Catra's withered heart. She will never have Adora, but... Scorpia is a fine consolation prize, she could grow to love her. And she does not have it in her to treat sweet Scorpia the way she has been treated, to leave her unrequited and longing.

“ Come on, then,” Catra says. “ Back to the party. Kyle, go check on the prisoner.”

New Kyle goes, the satyr too smart to grumble, while Catra leaves. She has a good night, and it is not until morning- when she discovers hangovers- that she is told by Kyle what Adora had said about portals, and swords, and Hordak.

Adora had not mentioned Shadow Weaver, does not think to explain _why _she knows all this, not to an enemy who is stranger to her. It is a fortuitous mistake; without her mother figure stretching claws over her mind, without thinking of the maternal love she has long been denied, Catra is able to ponder other things, like the Horde's conquering nature, and general unwillingness to let other people keeep what is theirs.

In another life, planning to return to the Horde, giving them the sword and rendering them triumphant sounded fine even before her rage against Shadow Weaver lent the affair an air of obsession; but now, now she plans to rule the Crimson Waste, and the Horde winning will take her fiefdom from her. She has been boss here for less than a day; she doesn't intend to lose it so soon.

So she gives the sword to New Kyle and tells her to cut Adora loose, and to guide her out of the Waste- but also to tell her not to come back, that Catra doesn't want to see her again. Scorpia's delighted- and that amuses Catra, she favors her brute with a fond glance as she sees the smile on her face, this final proof that Catra is done with Adora. Kyle leaves with her lizard girlfriend to get it done, and then...

Then Catra is alone, in the Waste, its lord and ruler.

She makes them call her Princess as her own private joke. Scorpia thinks it's hilarious, and that makes it worth it.

-

There are other things to learn, it turns out. She's the toughest, but survival out here is about knowledge, and Catra devours all of it that she can. She demands all of it, questions most of her people haven't even thought to ask, and a few that everyone asks.

What is dangerous out here? The answer: Most everything, but you can still survive. Catra privately kind of likes that. The Waste keeps people sharp, and it plays fair; as long as you know what's out there, you can survive, as long as you aren't stupid. It's tough and hard, like she is, and surviving out here proves she's got what it takes. The big dangers are the snakes and the petrifying cacti, from which the paralyzing darts are made- a thinned down version of their strange poison. Most things can be put to such use, out here.

What can you eat? Mostly bugs, but they're honestly pretty good. Better than ration bars. Snakes are better, but the snakes out here are big enough to make killing them a dicey proposition- and they hunt in packs. Still, snake steak is a treat, and one snake is enough for the whole gang to eat for a week. Catra and Scorpia hunt and kill a nest, to prove they can, two weeks into her rule. Her people feast like kings, and they throw a party that lasts three days; and Catra, looking out over her people, feels the first stirrings of something strange- a joyous sense of responsibility, a happiness that she has provided for those who follow her.

The last question is the most important one, though she does not know it at the time, and she only thinks to ask it after the snake feast. How big are the Wastes? It is a question she asks because she wants to know how big her new territory is. No one knows, it turns out, because the Waste is mostly unmapped; there's a few scattered bars and a few oasis that everyone knows, but that's... honestly about it.

Well, that won't do. Catra wants to know precisely how big her new realm is. Cartography isn't precisely one of Catra's skills, but Scorpia's a dab hand at it- well, pincer, but she can still grip a pencil. Force Captain Training, which Catra will never have, now, and does not miss.

(Well, that's a lie. The Fright Zone was home. The cadets, family- at least, as much of a family as she has ever had. She wonders, sometimes, how they're doing...)

Catra has Scorpia teach a few of her people, and realizes during the attempt that most of her new followers can't read or write- so that's a week or two, to teach basic things. Just scribblings in sand and on stone, paper being in short supply even with Mara's wrecked ship supplying them with a smorgasbord of technology and artifacts. It's fine, though the gang's a bit confused as to why she's teaching them this.

“ Because I won't rule a pack of idiots,” Catra replies, and that satisfies them. She's still too tough to challenge, with Lashor's whip sitting on her hip to remind them that she took it fair and square. And reading and writing aren't bad things to know, even if they've never had a gang leader who was like this, before. Who taught them things.

It's the first inkling they have that Catra is not like most gang leaders, and the smartest ones file it away, pondering that fact- but they do as she asks in the meantime.

So, shortly, they piece together a very vague idea of what the Waste as they know it looks like. It's not much. A few water holes that everybody fights over, and a few ragged tent cities that move from oasis to oasis, paying toll in repair, prostitution, and what passes for manufacturing and entertainment out here to whatever gang owns whichever oasis they are at this week. Catra owns the largest gang in the Waste now, but she's not the only would-be leader out here, it turns out.

Well. That won't do. Most of the Waste is unknown, and that just won't do either; Catra's not content to sit and do nothing. This is hers, and she must own all of it, she must be uncontested lord of the Crimson Waste and she must know how big it is. Some of her Horde training sticks with her; she wants to know what resources exist that they can exploit, and to do that, she must own the land and the people both.

So she sets her troops to scouring up whatever information they can find. Most of it is useless, scraps of rumors that don't pan out, threads of ideas that can't work, or simple gibberish spat out by sun-baked minds. Still, one of Lashor's archers finds Huntara's old notes in her private tent, left behind by the ex-Horde titan as she ran off with Glimmer and Bow back to Brightmoon; notes about places where she'd found water in the ground once she started digging. He wins a full wine skin for his efforts, and he pours it down his throat even as Catra pours over the notes, and compares them with their crude map.

The notes are half-random thoughts and half sketches of pretty, muscular women; Huntara had excellent taste, Catra will give her that much, eyes flickering over to her own loving brute in the meantime. Scorpia and her have become lovers in the meantime, stumbling awkwardly through what is their very first relationship (or at least, first _real _relationship, on Catra's part; whatever she and Adora were, at least, it was not _this_, this taste of each other, nights and sex and each other.)

But beyond that, she has two things of real consequence: notes that the snakes of the waste might be tamed, and a list of where she has found water with just a little digging.

That first Catra files away for later- her people don't have draft animals of any kind, it would be a hell of a boon to have one of any type, much less the ferocious snakes- but the second, the second she ponders for a full week. There has to be _something _she can use there... droplets of ideas, trickling to her from survival training. About how water, not that far down, means... means what? Something about a word, aquifer.

The areas where Huntara found water most consistently and most easily are all near each other, over a wide distance between two rocky plateaus, in a dip in the land, a natural bowl in the dunes. It's a pretty substantial area, and Huntara explored it fairly well, noting the area's somewhat protected by the wide rocky cliffs. Catra wonders if there might be a good base in that mess, if the water under there might be tapped on a more substantial scale, somehow.

They could set up a pretty nice well in that area, she bets, if they had a drill. And they've got tech enough from Mara's ship to piece one together, once she orders it done. This is an odd thing to order; gangs in the Crimson Waste go on raids, they fight, they hunt, and they plunder, but they do not build. The gang grumbles a bit about this change, as they grumbled about learning reading and writing- change is dangerous in the Waste, change means people go hungry and thirsty and die.

But Catra is too strong to challenge, though three try. They are left in quicksand pits, and the grumbling stops. It wasn't all that enthusiastic to start with; she's kept them well-fed and well-watered, after all, and her proof of strength in killing the others means challenging her is suicide. She's not different enough for them to want to assassinate her, either, though she's careful about her food for the next few days.

Order thus restored, the gang gets to work. Soon, with an engine that once ran a cargo float for power and a drill head formed out of the sharpest metals wielded together haphazardly by their unskilled hands, they've got a drill ready, and they head out on a trip, Catra riding behind them to make sure nobody tries to desert.

-

It takes a while to travel there, and it's fairly remote; more towards the north than most people go. Still, they've got lots of food and water, and nobody wants to cross Catra; they've passed too many quicksand pits on the way. Catra likes the way they stop and look at them, sometimes, remembering her strength; it's good to be the boss. To be the Princess, as she amuses herself by remembering.

Day one of the drilling is interrupted by snake attacks. Catra and Scorpia fend them off as the gang gets set up. It works out nicely; the snakes provide food for them that's better than what they packed, and it'll buy time for them to keep drilling in case things go wrong.

Day two is just... drilling. They hit water pretty quickly, but not a lot of it, and she orders them to keep digging through the mud. Eyebrows are raised, but they _did _hit water, so they shrug and keep going.

Day three, the mud is so thick they have to stop every hour and clean the drill's head. Grumbling starts again, quietly. This isn't what gangs do. Gangs hunt and kill each other, they don't... what in the world is this crazy outsider trying?

Catra notes, to her irritation, that whenever her troops are annoyed with her, it's _outsider_ and _foreigner_. Sure, when times are good she's the best boss ever, but the _second _she steps out of line... it weirdly boosts her resolve. She did not become their boss just to be told to obey unwritten rules; and Catra was never good at obeying anyone. She's the _boss_, goddamn it.

Days four and five, they've gone so deep they have to build a new shaft and staple it haphazardly to the first one... and occasionally, they are interrupted by bursts of water, as they hit pressurized pockets. The grumbling increases.

Day six, they hit no pressurized pockets, just thick, black mud. The grumbling begins to grow dangerous, and Scorpia urges Catra to give up... but she wants to try one more day.

Day seven, they all nearly drown.

-

The drill bites deep enough to finally hit pure, clean water.

A second after that, a torrent erupts straight up out of the drill hole. What starts as pleasant surprise soon turns to terror. The water just keeps _coming_, like she'd uncorked a bottle. Like all this water was just waiting for someone, _anyone_, to free it, released like a pressure valve. The pockets they'd hit were a warning that more was down here. Sands crumble as water is drained, the desert filling in what must be a titanic sinkhole under the ground, an entire inland sea she has discovered by accident.

Even as she runs, Catra ponders what could be powering all this. The springs that feed this water must be titanic, must be gushing and full, this must be the lowest point in the desert, this is where all the water that floods this place in seasonal rains ends up once it's soaked into the sands. All the groundwater of the entire Crimson Waste must end up here.

Her people flee as the waters rise, and rise, and rise, the drill busted and forgotten, destroyed by its own success. The hole they've torn grows even wider, the pressure released so powerful it tears its own cap wide open. For three weeks solid, the water gushes and pours, tearing the hole they dug wider and wider. This isn't a mere oasis, it's damn near a _sea_.

(Kyle nearly drowns. None of her people can swim, which surprises Catra, but shouldn't. Who the hell knows how to swim in a desert? Scorpia saves New Kyle, at least.)

-

The lake changes things. Before, she was the boss; but now, the respect has... strange overtones. People say Princess and they actually kind of mean it, these days; she's even heard a few people ask, quietly, if she actually _is _a Princess. She made a lake in the desert, after all; more fresh water than anyone has ever seen. Seems like magic, a commodity that is never seen out here in the Waste. The lake even has fish in it, little blind cave fish that are now exposed to the sun after generations underground.

They're calling it Catra's Lake. Give them points for clarity.

The tent cities are congregating on the shore of this new found bounty, looking for somewhere to settle down at last, and on their trail the gangs have been crawling in; Catra's fought more gang leaders in the last week than she had in the month prior, each warlord hoping to be the master of what is now the greatest source of water they have. None of them survive, and her legend grows with each would-be lord broken at her feet. So too does her gang, the ranks swelling with new recruits, who would rather serve the mighty than the dead.

But the ones that fight her aren't the weird ones. The ones who surrender- the ones who ask to serve the Princess- those are the weird ones. No one has ever _wanted _Catra to lead them before. She's never been the one people come to on bended knee.

But now she is.

One pregnant woman even asked her to bless her baby. She did it, and could not explain to herself why, except that doing so seemed... right.

She feels... responsible, somehow. For her own gang, of course, but... also for these strangers, who come to live by the shore of her waters. And hers they are; she'll kill anyone who tries to take them from her, and already has.

Still, that's not the only troubling news. She's heard that some of her would-be gang members have been terrorizing the tentfolk. That won't do. Not at all. The tent cities congregating on the shore are the beginnings of her very own Fright Zone, her capital and place of power; and Catra paid attention in the Horde, she knows how to make a system work. You cannot terrorize your _own _citizens, you gotta reserve that for enemy nations.

And shame for her would-be troublemakers, the Horde _knows _discipline, thrives on it. That Catra never listened doesn't mean she didn't know how it worked, and in a fit of irony so absurd she is sure some god somewhere is laughing, Catra, the forever rebel, the never-fit-in, becomes the arbiter of law and the enforcer of the rules- becomes, in fact, the very author of those rules, written with Scorpia's well-meaning help. Catra remembers the rules she broke in the Fright Zone and discards them; she doesn't want a bunch of rules, why recreate what she didn't like? Just... just a few. Just enough to get society going.

Some heads are busted. Laws have never existed in the Waste before, but law has never had a defender like Catra before, either, and it turns out that she's as good at enforcing the law as she used to be at breaking it. Those who do so out of an impish sense of mischief are put to work, not punished beyond that; those who do so to test her are found and drowned. It is a cruel and ironic death and it works wonders in enforcing discipline, and the fact that she makes a distinction at all- that she's gentler when she feels it's warranted- keeps her people from considering her a tyrant. You can plead a case to Catra, she's not totally heartless. Just don't cross her.

It, perversely, makes her probably the most reasonable warlord they've ever had, even as her territory swells and her city begins to include nearly everyone in the Waste. The challenges stop coming.

And the real challenge- rule itself- begins.

-

Projects eat up her months. Plans and projects, she cannot stop the wheels and gears in her head from spinning. It gives her something to do, and while sitting in judgment's fine, she otherwise seems almost allergic to her throne; she's young, and she's always been active, and sitting with nothing to do drives her to distraction.

Thank the First Ones that there is so much that needs doing. The Waste has never had a city before, and its never lived near water before, so now that they've got this huge inland sea, it behooves them all to figure out how to live now. Catra teaches them to swim; she hates water, but somebody has to do it- and she cajoles them for cowards when they fear to try. That gets them going. New Kyle is the first, and Catra finds herself weirdly proud of the satyr; water has terrified her since she nearly died, but she's the first volunteer. Her girlfriend is pleased, too, and Catra has a moment to wonder how Old Kyle and Rogello are doing, if the two ever patched things up.

She misses them.

But work occupies her mind and she has new things to do. She finds new lieutenants, the trustworthy: Scorpia above all, but there are newcomers who join her fledgling administration. New Kyle and her woman, of course, who are somewhere between court jesters, favored servants, and go-to minions; one of Lashor's archers, who wears a pilot's helmet he scrubbed from some forgotten First Ones' wreck somewhere, who turns out to be a mechanical genius and maybe the most valuable person in her entire city. A pack of dogfolk, who alone aren't that capable but who as a pack turn out to be her best cops. Others, filling roles as she needs them, many from the people who once formed the tent cities, wanderers taking up positions of governance and settling down to a permanent home.

Housing is constructed, more permanent than the tents, made mostly from stolen and scavenged material; despite the new abundance of waters, the Waste is no more productive than it ever was. The homes are made of tarps and cloth, sewn together by clever hands to keep the blazing sun at bay, stretched over bones- ancient ribcages now living rooms, what were skulls now doors. Her gang members- now soldiers and cops- work delivering the stuff, and protecting it as it crosses the Waste to reach her door. A few overheard conversations confirm that, though no one is quite sure what to think of Catra just yet, it's nice to come home, and to _have _a home, once you don't have to move all the time. A place to be.

The next project is getting some kind of draft animal, or at least something to ride on. Since the snakes are the biggest thing, she starts with them. A few people have tried raising them, over the years, and there's lots of rumors and myths, but little solid information. The only consistent information is that you must break the beast to your handle yourself.

Catra tames the first one. She won't ask her people to do something she has never tried, she will not command one of her own to a certain death without her giving it a try first.

(More of that odd feeling. A burden, to her people.)

It takes a week of pummeling a lone snake, a big specimen, chasing it and corralling it. It takes three months afterwards of care and discipline to get the thing to realize that there are punishments and rewards.

But it is only a day and a night, after all that work, to get it to take a saddle.

The snakes are smart enough to respond to commands and to fear punishment- and to respond to praise, in particular hands scratching along their backs and removing parasites. Her people seek to tame them with the same devil-may-care bravado that fills every one of her wasteland folk, and now, at last and at the last, all doubt in Catra is silent. Her praise is on every tongue, even those wounded or mauled by the snakes, who laugh at their wounds and try again.

The snakes change things again, nearly as much as the lake. A rider on snakeback can go more miles over desert sand, and far faster than anyone on foot. Soon, slithering tracks mark what amount to roads for her people, and it seems a daily occurrence for a snake laden with goods to come crawling in out of the wastes. Usually it's stuff from Mara's ship, whose excavation is ongoing; that treasure trove will last a while. But explorers also form the bulk of her new serpent riders, and the Crimson Waste begins to be mapped out yet again. Other resources are found; petrified wood forests, an entire graveyard for massive beasts that will provide construction material for generations, a few more of that rare and precious thing, the desert oasis.

They even find the shore, and the sea, and thinking about maps and maybes, Catra surmises her location in the world. Somewhere near Frosta's kingdom, she thinks.

Food becomes less of an issue. There's always fish in the lake- though Catra keeps that to a minimum, to avoid overusing the lake- and being together means people can pool resources. No one goes hungry. For the first time since they can remember, more are born than die in a month in the Waste, and they are not so dependent on newcomers to survive and maintain a population- though those appear too, exiles and outcasts and accidents and wanderers. All are welcome, if they are brave, and willing to work.

In time, the city by the lakes of Catra's Shore forms, and they call their city of bone and sand Serpentshore.

-

Huntara returns, at behest of the Princess Alliance, a year after she left. Once the Alliance knew the Waste had tech, they wanted it, and Huntara is sent as their agent to get it.

Adora doesn't come with her, and Catra's a little disappointed, but she keeps that inside herself.

Huntara appears, and walks to her court- held in the ribcage of the biggest monster she's ever seen. Well, biggest _dead _monster, she's sure Shadow Weaver's still out there somewhere.

Huntara's impressed, that's obvious, and her people report that she's been asking lots of questions, and being surprised by the answers. Catra hopes she'll sign up; the big woman had impressed.

But then Huntara says the fatal words, words Catra has not heard since she tamed the snakes.

“ I challenge you for boss,” Huntara says, in open court. Catra's stunned for a minute, before belatedly realizing what she's said. Worse, New Kyle starts laughing, big belly laughs.

“ Are you kidding?” New Kyle says, laughing. Everyone's surprised; Kyle's in a weird place in the hierarchy of the Waste, something like a court jester, sort of respected and sort of mocked. This is a new thing.

“ What do you mean?” Huntara asks, nonplussed. “ Might is right, that's how it's always been.”

“ You fight Catra, I'll cheat to kill you myself,” Kyle replies, but there's no threat in the tone; she's laughing too hard for that. “ Catra brought us water. Catra made a fucking _lake_. Catra taught us writing and snake-taming and keeps food in our bellies. Do you have any idea what that even means? I don't give a damn if she can't take you in a fistfight, you weren't half the ruler the Princess of the Waste is. I'll fight for her if you challenge her.”

Cheers and jeers both echo around the throne room, one for Catra and the latter for Huntara- affirmations that no one takes Huntara's challenge seriously. Catra's pretty sure she can win that fight- she's won them all up until now- but this confirmation that she doesn't have to... it's nice.

(She never calls her Kyle again after that. She's still kind of the lackey she blames for things- she's a bit of a goof, even at her best- but Catra takes care to call her by her proper name. Loyalty should be rewarded.)

“ I'd order you to leave,” Catra says, with a grin, “ but I'm a Princess, as you heard, and I've got a proposal your Alliance might want to hear.”

And so Huntara, outmatched, sits down to negotiate.

-

They end up cutting a deal. Her people have a ferocious need for things; plants, primarily, her people are hunters and fishermen but to truly survive a civilization needs agriculture or it is doomed to starvation and death. She needs growing things if they are to survive, if the little city by the shore of Catra's Lake is to be anything more than an accidental blip in history. Catra wants to know that, if she were to die tomorrow, this city would survive.

...And on that note, she'll need to set up a government system, one that isn't dependent on the force of her will. Once she dies, this will all collapse unless there's a system in place, and it's not like her and Scorpia are going to have a kid who can succeed her (and, privately, Catra fears that she would be as bad a mother as Shadow Weaver, or that she would overcompensate and be a poor parent in the opposite direction.) They'll need a government system that can outlast her. She'll have to... she'll need books on politics and philosophy. Teachers, too. Maybe set up a democracy, that fits with the rough and tumble nature of her individualistic people.

...When did she begin to care what happened after she died? Sometime between blessing the child and now, she feels as if her people are all that matter to her, now, as if her decisions have so much weight to them that she must be careful, else she will crush her people by accident. What is this feeling that commands her?

(She will never know it, but she has discovered what a barbarian from Cimmeria discovered as he sat on the throne of Aquilonia, and realized that he cared about the fate of its people; that even a conqueror may come to a king's responsibilities, that a crown won by battle may sit heavy on the head of the thief who took it, that an usurper can prove to be responsible with that which they have taken. She cannot identify the emotion and feeling that prompted her to bless the child, that motivates her now, for she has never been allowed to know of it- but its name is _duty_, and Catra, knowing it not, will still live up to its highest ideals. She will identify it in a book, years from now, and be at peace with it.)

The Princess Alliance needs First Ones Tech and people who can use it. Catra trades technology and know-how and a few engineers- those she can spare, with orders to come back and not get killed while they're gone- for handfuls of grain and fistfuls of paper and a few teachers, and it is a fair trade on both sides, all things considered. A harbor is constructed- imagine that, her people laugh, we've got a _harbor_, like we're a _real _country- and a city springs up around it, too. A few of her people are ex-sailors, and they teach the others soon enough- and the ocean is a desert, too, in its own way. It's water, but you still can't drink it.

Harshness and resilience translate well across the distance, and her people sail jerry-rigged boats of sheet metal and bone across rough seas with laughter in their throats and shanties on their chapped lips, and when she first sees her fleet set sail, Catra's breath is taken away. When she can breathe, she blesses the boats with cracked bottles full of sand- wine is too expensive for her nation to waste, but sand they have in abundance- and now there are two cities to her name, Serpentshore and Saltsand.

Soon other ships arrive, bearing trade and the Alliance's flags, and that's another point; she needs a flag. She holds a contest and has her people vote on one, and the design that wins almost causes her to shatter into tears; her helmet, in her maroon, on a black background,with a stylized serpent behind it. An old man designs it, one who has seen the Waste since forever, and when he holds up his contribution the cheers drown out everything else.

Her throat hitches twice before she is able to take control of herself. She asks if this is what they want, and one of the other flag designers laughs and burns his own, more abstract contribution, laughing as the oldest man in the Waste hands her the flag that will fly from her ships.

He lives just long enough to see the flag he made fly from every rooftop, and dies content. Catra attends his funeral, and wears mourning black for a week afterwards. It seemed the least she could do, for the gift he gave her.

Her ships fly that flag, and she ends up with a bundle of flags from the other members of the Alliance, proof of unity. Huh. She has actually _become _a Princess, it seems, at least politically. A standing invitation is sent to her by Frosta to attend the Princess Prom, all former actions forgiven, and she will probably attend in a few years, just to see how everyone's doing. If she's part of the Alliance now, she better keep up in their games of politics, or be left behind.

In the midst of all this, Bow comes to stay for a time, fascinated by their tech, and he brings a letter from Adora, which says she's proud of her, and asks that they be friends again.

It won't be like it was- they can never go back, no matter how enticing the thought is, even now- but Catra finds that she can't truly wish for things to change. She would not do that to her people, for one thing- there it is again, that strange sense that despite being their boss, she is their servant first and foremost- and for another... she would not give up Scorpia. She does not know what her relationship with Adora might have been like, but Scorpia's love is as big and overwhelming as the woman is herself, and it is so certain that it removes all doubt from her; she does not need to wonder if Scorpia loves her, because Scorpia's love for her is as constant as the punishing sun, she can curl up with her in bed and be at peace.

She finds she likes that, and she will not risk it for the chance at fulfilling a childhood passion.

But... she would like to see her again. Where the passion has died, the fact remains that Adora was her only friend, and even after everything... she'd still like her in her life. She'd still like to be friends with her. And now that she's not part of the Horde... hell, why not? Adora's like family to her, the closest thing she has to the concept. Other than Shadow Weaver, of course; but it's hard to remember darkness on her throat and the contempt in cold eyes when she's out under the burning sun, and at night, Scorpia's warmth keeps the nightmares away.

Maybe she should have known she would be lord of a sun-soaked land, that her heart and soul would be found in the desert; her enemy has always been darkness. It is not a surprise that her happiness is found in a land too full of light, where shadows cannot survive, where the sun's fury is so great that even night is tinged with it. Here, in this land, there are no shadows, not even in her mind.

And so purified, baptized not by cold and clinging waters but by furious and glorious sunlight, Catra, mind and eyes clear, writes back to her sister, to tell her to come visit.

She sends the letter back through Bow, whom she watches because, while great with tech, he's hopelessly lost amongst her aggressive people- he's a good fighter, but there is no mean bone in his body at all, and several times she has to save him from getting accosted. Glimmer and Adora visit with the next shipment afterwards, arriving on her distant shores and traveling by snake to her capital, and Glimmer fits right in, to her surprise; the princess is just glitter and fists, but she knows how to use those to take her wherever she wants, and she's getting into bar fights and laughing with Catra's people two days later, to Adora's incredible consternation and to her people's general acclaim. They all end up kind of liking the punky princess, who for all her glitz and glam has real steel underneath, and Glimmer takes to the Crimson Waste like a duck to water; she's always been a bit of a spitfire, and her people respond well to her strength.

Adora, though, she's torn between staring at every muscular woman she finds and being confused as to how to respond to her people's edges, and it's adorable. She's cute when she's flustered. Scorpia catches her noticing, and Catra catches her catching her, and it turns the big softie surprisingly mean; her distaste for Adora gives Scorpia her first real meanness, and everybody's on edge in the city while Scorpia frowns at Adora hard enough to wear grooves in the walls.

Catra takes her to the side the second day of Adora's visit.

“ What?” Scorpia says, ready to defend herself, up until Catra pulls the big bottom down into a kiss.

The kiss lasts a lot longer than theirs usually do- Catra's a bit of a nipper, and her kisses in the throes of passion are quick and biting things- and Scorpia, tense, eventually relaxes into it. When Catra lets go, her loving brute is blushing, and has forgotten to be angry.

“ Remember that I love you,” she tells her, Princess to Princess, lover to lover. “ I chose you. I chose this. Don't worry about Adora. I can admire a cute girl, as long as I come back home to you.”

Scorpia blushes again, and looks away,and Catra waits- stays there, until her eyes drift back to hers. “ Okay,” Scorpia says, smiling.

She still dislikes Adora, but it's a reasonable amount of dislike now, and that's good enough for Catra. Besides, your sister should always hate your wife.

-

Being friends with Adora helps. It helps _considerably._ She is recognized as an official Princess; no Gemstone to power her, but the Crimson Waste is a land no one else wants, and it is another finger in the fist the Alliance is building to give the Horde one last knock-out punch.

And this finger comes with a knuckle duster; Mara's ship is a treasure trove, and while she is careful with her trade of it, she does her best to arm the Alliance. They need it, or the Horde will take all she has built away.

Her ramshackle ships, loaded with ancient technology, fall apart at a touch, but can blast apart enemy ships like nobodies' business, and her troops are second to none; no magic, but plenty enough of meanness and smarts to make a difference. And First One's tech can overcome all obstacles, even when you don't know how or why something works.

The one attempt the Horde makes to invade her home is wiped out in ten days. The desert is an ugly foe, and most of them die to the sand and the sun; what is left is food for the snakes and target practice for the snake riders. A few she manages to catch and take, and she offers all survivors a place here, if they want it. Some stay. They are watched, but most prove loyal enough; it's better than the Horde, after all.

And in time, when the final battle comes, Catra will be there with the other Princesses, slugging it out at the end of all things.

-

She finds out, later, that Shadow Weaver had went to Brightmoon. Had left her, again, had chosen Adora, that her mother did not love her, and had lied to her. Something had happened to her in the meantime, but she doesn't hear the rest of the story, it is drowned out by a sudden wave of pain.

It hurts. Before, the knowledge that Shadow Weaver had abandoned her for Adora, _again_... it might have destroyed her. It might have killed her, she thinks, or at least, damaged her badly enough that it would be death of a sort. It hurts even now, all this time later.

But... it is a year later. She is the Princess of the Crimson Waste. There's a lake named after her. Two cities, both growing. Immigrants and justice issues and new discoveries as the Waste was fully explored. Scorpia... Scorpia loves her. Her people love her. She's blessed babies and given speeches. She's...

She's hurt by it.

But she'll live.

For a month, she's a little more on edge than usual, and relies a little more on Scorpia's touch, and she withdraws a little bit. To the average citizen, it would be hard to tell anything had changed. Those closest to her notice, and wonder, and worry, and are relieved when she returns to normal.

She lashes out at Adora, just once, and they make up, and they both finally talk about Shadow Weaver, the way they should have years ago, and the conversation heals something in both of them, and they hug it out. Never to be lovers, but to be friends with someone is not a second-rate or second-best choice, and she is comforted by her sister's presence.

Then it's back to work. Shadow Weaver is a past life, a life Catra once lived but lives no longer. And shadows have no place here in the Crimson Waste, not here in this hot land under the sun, where even night is stained with memory of day's heat; and Catra lets the burning desert and the taste of Scorpia on her tongue chase all her darknesses away.

(The Crimson Waste will arise as a fine society in time, a nation all to itself, and as long as it lasts, long after Catra's bones are laid to rest in a state funeral, there will be a statue in its main square of their first ruler, Catra, first Princess of the Crimson Waste.)

**Author's Note:**

> I do love me some politics and world-building and nation building and Catra, oh me oh my.


End file.
